The Triumph of Cosmic Order

Order -- like time, somehow always in short supply --
provides the structure and predictability that makes our short lives
manageable. The Universe is
different. Order has been relentlessly
overtaking chaos endless course of time (thanks to the universal laws of
physics). We live in an cosmic epoch
characterized by order: from the initial cosmic soup galaxies, stars, planets,
and life have condensed. We shall
explore the many striking and ubiquitous forms of cosmic structure through the
march of time using new images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other
space-borne facilities. Yet the present
cosmic order is a deceptive guide to the future since it is really a tense and
constantly evolving compromise among the Law of Gravity that formed the
structures, the Second Law of Thermodynamics that assures the dominance of
entropy, and the Uncertainty Principle that limits the longevity of all
material objects. We shall peer into the
major cosmic changes that await our descendants over the next trillion years.